6 INTRODUCTION. 



the bullock of agriculture, the bee of indus- 

 try. The spider was symbolical of the art of 

 weaving, the sphinx became the emblem of 

 subtility, a crocodile represented the land of 

 Egypt, and a merchant was described by a 

 man holding a purse. 



The hierogrammatists, or holy registers 

 who had the care of the sacred hieroglyphics 

 in Egypt, made use of symbols only known 

 to themselves. They were always near the 

 person of the king, and they bore a kind of 

 sceptre in the form of a ploughshare. But 

 after Egypt became a Roman province, these 

 offices sunk into neglect, and the phoenix, their 

 hieroglyphic of the sun, set to rise no more 

 in their symbolical writings. In the height of 

 Egyptian prosperity, moral reflections as well 

 as public events were represented by pictures, 

 as is shewn by the celebrated inscription on 

 the temple of Minerva at Sais, where an in- 

 fant, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a river- 

 horse, are made to express this sentence : 



